Hands Up I Can’t Breathe!

For the second time in as many weeks, a grand jury decision to not indict a white police officer over the death of a black man was met with public outraged, protest and of course civil disobedience.
 
Is there a patter forming here?  There most certainly is, but not one of white police officers getting away with murdering black men.  The dangerous pattern emerging from these grand jury decisions is the unlawful disruption of the daily lives and livelihood of hard working men and women who fall victim to the antics of lawless protesters.  These so called protesters, whom disagree with the decision of the Michael Brown and Eric garner grand juries, have chosen to block traffic, interrupt commerce and in some cases, destroy property, all in the name of their perverted version of justice.

In the death of both Michael Brown and Eric Garner there was a segment of society that possessed the predisposed opinion that nothing short of an indictment by the grand jury, followed by a guilty verdict of the police officers in question, would be justice, anything less would be viewed as a corrupt and bias system against blacks, no matter the circumstance, evidence or the rule of law. 

Similarities and Differences in the Brown and Garner Cases

There are a large number of similarities between the Michael Brown and Eric Garner incidents; the greatest of course is that a black man died as a result of his interaction with a white law enforcement officer.

Minor infractions initiated the interaction between both Michael Brown and Eric Garner with law enforcement, a tragic similarity which yielded a deadly consequence for both.  For Brown, the innocent act of walking down the center of the street with his partner Darin Johnson set events in motion, for Eric Garner it was the sale of “loosies” {single cigarettes} on a neighborhood street in Staten Island.

Walking down the center of a public street is an infraction of the law in any city but more concerning than the legality of the act is for the safety of those individuals doing so.  Had Michael Brown and Darin Johnson complied with the police officer’s request to walk on the sidewalk, the entire sequence of events that followed would likely have had a much different outcome.  However, Michael Brown was confrontational causing what started as a simply request, made for his safety, into a life ending encounter.

Much like the choices Michael Brown had at his disposal, Eric Garner could have complied with law enforcement requests and subsequently walked away with a misdemeanor ticket.  Instead, an immediate escalation on the part of Garner ultimately led to a tragic ending.

Eric Garner was not new to encounters with law enforcement having run up a long list of arrests numbering over 30 in as many years including resisting arrest.  At the time of the incident that led to his death, Mr. Garner had three misdemeanor cases pending in the Stapleton Criminal Court for selling untaxed cigarettes.

If there is any similarity in the encounters with law enforcement for Michael Brown, we will likely never know.  Having recently turned 18, Michael Brown did not have an adult criminal record.  There has been both speculation and rumor that Brown had accumulated a substantial juvenile criminal record however, that record is sealed and will remain so pending a court action to release it, which is highly unlikely to happen.

What is known of Michael Browns criminal past is that just a short time before his demise, he was captured on a surveillance camera in the act of a strong arm robbery where he physically assaulted a store clerk and stole several packages of cigarillos.  Certainly a crime was committed by Michael Brown, as was admitted by his accomplice.  The question many are asking themselves is, was this Brown’s first unlawful act, his second or maybe just one of many that has taken place?  For certain, Michael Brown does not appear to be nervous or even concerned with the fact that he is breaking the law and seemed quite comfortable ruff-handling the store clerk.  Unless other evidence is release, whether or not Michael Brown had a behavior of criminal activity will be for each individual to form their own opinion, for now all we have is a video clip to base our opinion on.

And one final similarity, the size of these two men.  Both Michael Brown and Eric Garner were large men, very large men.  Be it they were gentle giants or crazed mad men would have little relevance to the fact that they were both larger men than any single law enforcement officer could manage in a physical confrontation.

Unlike the large number of similarities between these two incidents, the number of differences are very few, the most significant of which is that the police interaction with Eric Garner was captured on video, where there is no such video for Michael Brown.

The False Message

In Ferguson Missouri, it didn’t take long for the word to spread.  The account told by Darian Johnson, the young man who had engaged in the theft of the cigarillos and was with Brown when the police officer first made contact, claimed that “Big Mike”, as he refers to his friend Michael Brown, had his hands in the air and was telling the officer to stop shooting right before receiving a fatal shot to the head. 

Darian Johnson’s account of the shooting ran like wild fire through the small, predominantly black community of Ferguson and quickly became the major buzz across social media.  Derived from what later would be proven to be a complete fabrication of events, “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” was adopted as the symbol used by protesters and others calling for justice in what they were now claiming to be an epidemic of police officer shootings of black men across the nation.

Both eye witness accounts and forensic evidence disproved literally all of Darian Johnson’s account of what took place and concluded well beyond any reasonable doubt that Michael Brown did not have his hands in the air, in surrender to the police officer, at the time he was fatally shot.  And yet, raised hands and the Hands Up Don’t Shoot mantra continue to be used by those who believe that the justice system is bias against black men.

Much the same holds true in the “I Can’t Breathe” catchphrase that emerged out of what the public and media have falsely described as the choking death of Eric Garner.

Having well over 30 previous incidents with law enforcement, what may be best described as another routine encounter between Eric Garner and the New York Police Department turned into a wrestling match between the 400 pound Garner and several of New York's finest. 

Caught on amateur video, the words “I Can’t Breathe” where clearly repeated several times by Eric Garner as police officers struggled to place him in to custody.  In the act of doing so, one police officer did in fact momentarily placed Mr. Garner in some form of a chokehold.  And like those who took a fictitious claim of “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and turned it into a national symbol of police wrongdoing in the Michal Brown incident, those eager to place blame on law enforcement did the same with the Mr. Garner’s repeating of “I Can’t Breathe”.

Nobody knows what evidence was taken in to account by the Eric Garner Grand Jury but for the general public, all focus has been placed on the police officers chokehold.  Terribly false accusations against the police officer have stemmed from his use of the chokehold, many claiming that the officer purposely strangled Eric Garner to death because he was a black man.  These highly irresponsible allegations are responsible for what has led to the massive protests we are seeing in the streets of New York and across the nation.

But Eric Garner did not die at the hands of a racist police officer, his death occurred as a result of his poor health and a poorer decision to resist arrest.  The chokehold that Mr. Garner’s was placed in was released at his first plea that he could not breathe {watch the video} .  Eric Garner continued to call out that he could not breathe several times after the police officer release his hold on Garner. The medical examiner’s report indicated that the chokehold, along with a number of other factors, mostly poor health and Mr. Garner stressing himself while fighting with police officers, triggered the heart attack to which he died from several minutes after the confrontation with law enforcement officers.

Based on a very small number of incidents that happened over a similarly small length of time, somehow a national outrage has occurred, perpetuating the notion that there is some kind of long standing epidemic of white police officers killing black men.  Nothing could be further from the truth as was best demonstrated in exchange between Fox News’s Bill O’Reillyand Tavis Smily.  O’Reilly lays out some pretty damaging statistics at about the 7 minute mark that destroys the narrative that blacks are being targeted disproportionally by white police officers.

I Think Thou Doth Protest Incorrectly

The US Constitution guarantees each American the Freedom to Assemble and the Freedom of Speech which combined are viewed as the basic human right to protest.  Protest is a necessary part of our country, they provide the means to ensure that no one voice can be drowned out by another.  Protest is a powerful thing and as such is far too often abused.

Specifically referring to the Freedom of Speech, while the constitution does guarantee ones right to communicate their opinions and ideas, it protects the rights of others who do not wish to listen, i.e., a person does not have the constitutional right to force their freedom of speech upon another, which leads us to Freedom of Assembly.

The US Constitution makes clear the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the Government without fear of punishment or reprisal.  The constitution does not however bear free reign to those who assembly and is explicit that in exercising ones Freedom to Assembly, doing so must be compatible with the normal activity of a particular place at a particular time.  In simpler terms, the Freedom to Assembly does not grant the right to anyone to disrupt the lives, travel and routine of others, including the disruption of commerce.

The deaths of Michael Brown and the Eric Garner have sparked protest which spread across the nation after the grand jury decision, in both cases, to not indict the police officer said to be responsible for their deaths and rightly so.  For many, they truly believe that justice was not properly served and through peaceful protest they are able to air their grievance. For others however, the deaths of both of these men provides little more than an excuse to disrupt the lives of hard working men and women as well as commerce.  The latter sends the wrong message and only enrages those who do not share their views.

The Disingenuous Discussion of Race in this Country

Sparked by a tragic encounter between a police officer and a young black man in Ferguson Missouri, the shooting death of Michael Brown buy officer Darren Wilson has once again awoken those who have made a profession of exploiting the social disparity in the poor black communities of American.

The tragedy in Ferguson was instantly thrust into the national spotlight by a less than responsible media which shirked its obligation to provided honest and unbiased journalism for a chance at top billing in the evening news cycle.  Across the national, networks and news platforms pushed a story that leaned heavily on the side of a community which claimed that a white police officer shot down an unarmed black man in cold blood.  And so the fire was ignited!

Hands Up Don’t Shoot

Spurred from the attention being received by the civil actions, prominent black figures began to come out of the woodwork to cast their aspersions on both Officer Wilson and law enforcement in general who they claim has a long seeded history of racial bias against blacks.  The underlying message from all was the same, they were tired of a claimed overwhelmingly disproportionate number of black men getting killed by white cops and demanded that this social injustice be brought to an end.  On the ground, the false account of the police shooting, perpetuated by the young black man Michael Brown was walking with at the time of the incident, birthed the Hands Up Don’t Shoot mantra. 

With hands raised in the air, protesters in major cities across the nation have been demonstrating.  Most demonstrators have been peaceful while some have been disruptive and in a few incidents protestors have become destructive.  In a veiled attempt to justify their disruptive and sometime destructive behavior, protestors have claimed they are doing so to foster attention to the injustice that was bestowed upon Michael Brown, an injustice that was concluded by a grand jury to have never occurred. 

Crusaders Come and Crusaders Go

The Ferguson incident is not the first and certainly will not be the last that will dredge up a group of self-proclaimed defenders of the cause and place them in the limelight.  Their devotion to standing against social injustices lasts for as long as current headline stays in the news cycle and then they are gone.  Not until they see Al Sharpton’s face appear on the evening news again will the even give a second thought to it.  Their temporary outrage is as disingenuous as their message and does a disservice to those who are actually engaged in fight against social injustice and racial bias.  However, their moment in the spotlight often does tell an important story, as has very much been in the case in the Michael Brown shooting.

A three month long grand jury hearing kept the protests and social unrest in Ferguson going.  As well, it did the same for the story in the news cycle.  This provided a great opportunity for the less liberal leaning cable news outlets to invite the most recent group of black conveyors of social justice to appear on their news segments and get their views on the justice system and how it is applied to the black community.  What we saw in virtually every interview was contempt for white police officers and in many cases a general view that any jury that does not reach a verdict in favor of a black defendant as being racist.

For those few who have spoken out in favor of the white police officer in Ferguson, they have been chastised by many of their black peers and throughout social medial, predominately by other blacks.

Don’t Be An Uncle Tom!
It’s a disturbing message and one that cannot be ignored when those who are black and choose not to play Michael Brown as a victim are labeled as traitors to their race by so many. Many have even gone so far as to call these individuals Uncle Tom’s.

There is clearly a racial divide but not one created by the white segment of society.  Many of those in the black community whom have made derogatory remarks about those blacks that do not share their racially biased opinion have done so loudly and proudly while embracing their own hypocrisy.

Change Cannot Happen Without Change

After watching and listening to one black spokesperson after another make outlandish claims, such as cops are hunting down blacks and that no black man could ever get a fair trial, you can’t help but wonder, do these people not realize that we live in the 21^st century?  Those making these claims include several elected officials and those of prominence.  Countless wildly embellish statistics have also been thrown around over the past several months, some so blatantly false that it makes you scratch your head in wonder what the real object is, what message are these people truly trying to convey?
 
There is nothing that can be said or done that will change the minds of this segment of black society and until they decided to be honest with themselves and take some responsibility for what is going on inside the depressed black neighborhood instead of always claiming to be the victim, nothing is likely to change. 

Let Us Not Forget How Far We Have Come

Far behind us are the dark days of our nation when blacks had to sit in the back of the bus and drink from a separate water fountain. Through the civil rights efforts of great men and woman including but certainly not limited to the likes of Roy Wilkins, James Farmer and Martin Luther King Jr., the blatant violation of even the most basic civil rights of black Americans have all but been eradicated.  That is not to say that America is free of bigotry and racism which is the reason we must remain vigilant in our efforts to stomp out these intolerances as they surface. 

What we must not allow is for those who make their living on the issues of racial hatred and mistrust to create a racial divide that serves their professional interest.  We also must not allow those who exploit racially charged incidents used to further their political aspirations to do so.  Both are opportunists and their motives disingenuous, self-serving and have done more to victimize the depressed black communities throughout the nation than to uplift them.

Add Ferguson to the List of Black Communities Burned

Following the release of the news that no charges would be filed against the white police officer who, in self-defense, shot and killed a black teen in Ferguson Missouri, a faction of the community spent the remainder of the evening looting and burning down their own town.  Subsequently, today and for several days to come, we will get to listen to all the self-proclaimed spokespersons of the black community explain how these actions are everyone’s fault but their own.

These patterns of mindless destruction and violence have become is predictable as they have been repeatable and there is nothing that can be said or done to stop it.  It has been tried for decades with program after program, outreach after outreach and opportunity after opportunity, injecting billions of taxpayer’s dollars into communities that seem to have little to no desire to better themselves.

It is time we quit making excuses for bad behavior.  As well, it is time to stop shifting the blame away from those who choose to act out in a lawless and destructive manner.  Not until the people within our nation’s depressed black communities choose to quit playing the victim and decide to better themselves will things change.

But this will never happen so long as the people of these communities choose to be represented by national figures the likes of Al Sharpton and other such race baiters who surface just long enough to keep themselves relevant and in the process stir the racial pot into a frenzy.  So long as the Al Sharpton’s of the world continue to convince the people who live in these poor black communities that they are victims they will remain so.  What these communities need is not another social program, what they need is better national leaders and representatives. 

All that the great Reverend Martin Luther King accomplished in his all too short a lifetime often seems all for not.  The people who vandalized, burned and stole from businesses in their community last evening should be ashamed of themselves.  The problem is that they are not!